


Intoxication or Romanticization

by Anonymous



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drinking, Except I’m Not, Intoxication, I’m sorry, M/M, Murder, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 21:16:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20160220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The one where Zack dies in the end.





	Intoxication or Romanticization

**Author's Note:**

> If you have clicked on this then I want to hear no whining or hateful words in the comments. It is your choice to read this.

If Zack were to choose a way to die, off of the top of his head, he would choose drowning. It is said when a person drowns they have enough adrenaline in them to hold their breath up until their lungs almost collapse before water touches them. For once, Zack doesn’t check to see if that is a fact because the more interesting thing about drowning, that is a fact, is that right before you die you get a moment of euphoria. 

This sounds romanticized, sure. It’s hard not to find a description of death that hasn’t been romanticized in some way. After all, it is human nature to ‘sugar coat’ things as Booth would say. Booth isn’t here though, none of his friends and colleagues are. It’s almost heart breaking in itself, so Zack romanticizes. 

For as long as he could remember, Zack had a peculiar interest in death. No, he didn’t kill small animals or even enjoy hunting as a matter of fact. However, he did collect and study any manner of dead insect or animal bone from a young age. He had never been interested in death in the way in which a murder would be. No, he wanted to study it and, most importantly, experience it. 

He’d spent years studying it. Getting his doctorate, working with Doctor Brennan, and assisting in the solving of many, many murders. Now that he’s studied it, he needs to experience it. He’s romanticizing, of course. He hasn’t the force of will to kill himself and he can’t simply ask someone to do it for him. The chances of him meeting a murderer out in the streets somewhere is deceptively low as well. 

So, he’s resigned himself to life. He supposes that it isn’t too awful a thought for any normal person. He’s no normal person though, he craves it. Needs it. Romanticizes it. It is certifiably awful that he can’t have it. 

On the odd night not spent helping solve a case or sifting through the lost souls of limbo, he finds himself at a bar. He’s heard of ‘drinking away your problems’ and ,though he knows the bartender won’t let him get to the point of alcohol poisoning, he thinks it’s a wonderful idea. This isn’t the usual type of bar that he and the other ‘squints’ tend to frequent. In layman’s terms it’s dead. There are barely five people there and two of them are the bartender and waitress/custodian. 

He’s had two deep blue drinks in a swirly glass before he realizes that there is way more alcohol content in the drinks that he can taste. The realization comes with a newcomer who takes a seer directly next to him at the bar and flags the man behind the counter down to get himself a scotch and another of whatever it is Zack has been drinking. He thanks the stranger though his own tongue feels numb and foreign in his mouth. 

The man is attractive in an objective sense of the word. He has a pronounced and symmetrical bone structure, intense dark colored eyes that seem to transform from black to blue when he turns his head, hair black enough to absorb what dim light christens the bar, and the most soothing voice. He’s sure any of the women and maybe even Jack would snatch up the chance to take this man home. He may fumble into trying too if he weren’t so drunk or if he were still craving anything more than the tender embrace of death. 

He’s romanticizing again and as he finishes his now third drink he isn’t sure if he’s romanticizing the strange man, the sweetened release of death, or both. The man orders him one more even though the stranger is still on his first. It should alarm Zack, but instead he lets out a mumbled and garbled ‘thank you’. The man’s smile is sharp and unsettlingly wide at the pleasantry. Any normal person would be alarmed, he only tries to remember the statistic of people filing their teeth. He can’t. 

When Zack finishes his fourth drink the man withdrawals his wallet and slides a large bill across the counter to the bartender. The air swirls in vibrant colors of hard light, paintbrush strokes, and strings in front of his eyes as the stranger helps him to stand. He idly wonders is this is how Angela sees the world as he is deposited into the passenger seat of a vehicle. 

He blanks out watching the red of taillights swirl around the blues and purples and greens of neon signs. His mind seems to drift and his body goes slack but he doesn’t fall unconscious. He wonders if this is what it feels like to be high and he wonders why he hasn’t gotten this drunk before. His train of thought is short lived and crashes frequently as he looses himself to streetlights that look like stars and planets in his intoxicated vision. He wonders if he’s been using the wrong word all this time; if he’s romanticizing death or if he’s intoxicated by it, though it could very well be both. 

He’s still quite intoxicated when he realizes he’s been moved. There is a slab hard underneath him and his wrists are bound at his sides. He thinks he hasn’t realized until now because the room is lit by many small bulbs on cords that seem to serial and curl around each other like the Vincent Van Gogh painting Starry Night. Specifically the less known one depicting a bridge. 

The strange man’s face swims into view above him and the cool bite of metal moves over Zack’s cheek and throat like the inviting slid of silk. The man smiles at him as if he’s realized that the doctor’s eyes have finally focused on him. The man is all short brushstrokes and string theory weaving in and out of real world view and his smile is sharp and deadly in both planes of existence. 

The blade slides down his chest and the buttons of his shirt begin to pop and part leaving his skin to be kissed at by frigid air like snowflakes. The blade rocks sensually over his navel and the bindings all along his body keep him from pushing up against it and drawing blood. It takes all of his will to speak and he wonders if hope sleeps into his voice like blood into snow. “Are you going to kill me?”

The man tilts his head at him black and then blue eyes shifting as if someone head made a motion picture with paintings. Dark swaths of hair fall across the man’s forehead as his face lilts closer to Zack’s own. He can smell copper and mint and scotch as a damp breath ghosts across his lips and the man speaks. “No, I’m going to set you free.”

He tilts his head down and drags Zack into a searing kiss, plush lips burning a brand into his own. If he weren’t intoxicated, if he didn’t have any romanticized notions about death he would have screamed when the blade pierced his sternum or his stomach. He doubts he could have even attempted to scream as the blade slices through his larynx. Intoxicated romanticization leads him to the warm, wet, and loving arms of death. 


End file.
